Is Maya Cho in Love With Her Handsome Doctor?

Open to the West Now, Myanmar Airs Curious Breed of TV Soaps

By

James Hookway

Updated Nov. 16, 2012 10:36 p.m. ET

YANGON, Myanmar—"Wait, wait. What's that buzzing noise?" Something's bothering Henri Delorme, a French consultant working on the set of a new Myanmar television comedy called "Flowers and Butterflies." "Is it a radio, or what?" he asks during a recent night shoot, grabbing a pair of headphones and clasping them to his ears as the actors pause.

A newly democratizing Myanmar is trading its dreary television programming of army parades in for advertiser-friendly soap operas. WSJ's James Hookway reports on the nascent commercial programming industry in Myanmar.

The two men exchange a look and smile. "OK, it doesn't matter. Allez, allez!" Mr. Delorme yells.

Across the globe, multinational firms may be champing at the bit over an entire nation three times the size of Australia opening its doors to Western businesses after decades of military rule. But at least for some residents of this country, also known as Burma, a bigger issue may be what's going to happen on the next episode of "The Sign of Love."

Imagine, if you can, the dawn of the soap-opera era for a nation of 64 million, whose only option in TV in the past was watching dreary army parades, stiff news shows and carefully scripted concerts. Now, Myanmar, with six state-run networks and one private cable network, is trying to serve up a new breed of programming.

But it isn't easy, whether it's handling the logistics of churning out five episodes in a week in a place still lacking many modern conveniences, or conforming to a culture just developing its own brand of televised humor.

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Dodie Gutierrez from the Philippines monitors the shooting of a new Myanmar comedy series on MRTV-4.
James Hookway/The Wall Street Journal

"We don't have much expertise at the moment, so we have to rely on outside help to get things done," says Winn Maw, chief executive at state-run MRTV-4's production partner, Forever Group.

The commands spoken on the set of "Flowers and Butterflies" alone are mishmash of Myanmar, English and French, among others. Mr. Delorme, 48 years old, has worked on soap operas in Indonesia and the Philippines, and in many cases some of these countries are now exporting scriptwriters and production managers to help other nations nail the kind of juicy plotlines and cliffhangers advertisers adore. Mr. Gutierrez, 34, has worked on similar shows in the Philippines, and has also helped produce programming for international networks.

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Winn Maw

Together, they produced an angst-ridden drama loosely based on Romeo and Juliet called the "The Sign of Love" which also drew on local beliefs such as reincarnation. "It's about getting a second chance at love," Mr. Delorme says.

Masterpiece Theater, it is not. Indeed, some of the plotlines of the country's new soaps can be fairly preposterous. In one episode of "Sign," a young woman vamping at a fashion show stumbles and twists her ankle on the catwalk. "Ah, it hurts, I think I'm dying," says the character, Maya Cho. Luckily, there's a handsome young man in the audience who carries her piggyback to the hospital where the attending physician turns out to be another handsome young man. "Oh, no, I can't walk on stage now," the model declares, and goes back to see the doctor again and again for treatment before the episode discreetly cuts to images of two birds courting.

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Advertising billboards are beginning to take over Yangon as investment flows into Myanmar.
James Hookway/The Wall Street Journal

The new show the team is working on, "Flowers and Butterflies," draws on "Ugly Betty," the American reimagining of a Colombian drama series in which an ugly duckling gradually blossoms into the most beautiful girl in town. Their next projects include a reworking of the Cinderella fairy tale and a Myanmar version of the "America's Top Model" reality show.

"That's going to be tough," Mr. Gutierrez predicts, slapping away the mosquitoes attracted by the bright TV lights. "We can't show much flesh here because the culture is really quite conservative."

To be sure, as with everything else in this developing country, viewership is in the early stages. With even electricity a luxury in some parts of the country, just a fraction of Myanmar's population can regularly watch television. But it hasn't taken long for multinational companies like Coca-Cola Co. to rush back to the country as a new civilian government finds its feet, and for advertisers to seize on the medium for both its reach and potential. According to estimates by local research firm Myanmar Marketing Research & Development, advertisers allocate up to 80% of their ad spend on television.

Mr. Winn Maw, of Forever Groups, says advertising rates have doubled this year to reach $150 for a 10-second prime-time segment. But while Myanmar has a strong local movie scene, it lacks the skills to quickly turn around money-spinning soap operas. Other Asian countries can rely on cheap soap operas from South Korea, but Myanmar has laws preventing local actors overdubbing in their own language. Subtitles can be a turnoff.

In fact, adapting to the local culture is one of the foreign team's biggest obstacles. While Buddhist temples and languid streets scenes can make for some compelling images on the screen, some Myanmar customs, such as removing shoes outside temples, homes and offices can be dangerous at a shooting where there are live cables snaking around the floor. The production team often has to use 1960s-era switching boxes to regulate power supply, and there are frequent power outages.

Then there's the challenge of daily life in Myanmar, which until recently had been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. The foreign crew eagerly trades rumors of the latest changes to sweep the country. Among the hot topics one recent evening were the expected arrival of new ATMs that can accept foreign bank cards and the planned visit of U.S. President Barack Obama. Mr. Gutierrez, meanwhile, recalls getting prepped for a full body spa at the local barbershop recently when all he wanted was a hair cut. "I've got my own clippers now," he says.

There's a culture clash on the Myanmar side, too. Hla Phyo, the director of "Flowers and Butterflies," has been working in films and television for 11 years. This is "so much faster," he says between quick puffs on a cigarette. Instead of editing back at the television network, the production team often edits in the field, quickly selecting which of three camera angles to use, saving time and money.

Ideally, Mr. Delorme and Mr. Gutierrez say they hope to train up enough directors and production crew to churn out completely local shows. Already they leave much the fine-tuning of the script to the Myanmar team.

Shooting doesn't always go smoothly, though. After one recent take, Mr. Hla Phyo and bespectacled "Butterflies" actress Khay Sett Thwin squealed with delight after she pulled some risque lingerie from a bag belonging to one of the other characters, a tomboyish roommate. "What?" says Mr. Gutierrez as he watches the playback. "Can we even show that in Myanmar TV? I mean, come on."

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